COBOL (Common Business Oriented Language) was one of the
earliest high-level programming languages. It was developed in 1959 by a
group of computer professionals called the Conference on Data Systems
Languages (CODASYL). Since 1959 it has undergone several modifications
and improvements. In an attempt to overcome the problem of
incompatibility between different versions of COBOL, the American
National Standards Institute (ANSI) developed a standard form of the
language in 1968. This version was known as American National Standard
(ANS) COBOL.

In 1974, ANSI published a revised version of (ANS) COBOL, containing a
number of features that were not in the 1968 version. In 1985, ANSI
published still another revised version that had new features not in the
1974 standard.

The language continues to evolve today. Object-oriented COBOL is a
subset of COBOL 97, which is the fourth edition in the continuing
evolution of ANSI/ISO standard COBOL. COBOL 97 includes conventional
improvements as well as object-oriented features. Like the C++
programming language, object-oriented COBOL compilers are available even
as the language moves toward standardization.